Red Cross meets Suu Kyi

The visit came as the United States slapped tough new sanctions on the impoverished Southeast Asian country, a move military-ruled Myanmar and some of its neighbors said would only hurt the country's poor.

International concern has been mounting over Suu Kyi's health and whereabouts, and Myanmar's ruling generals have come under intense diplomatic and economic pressure to free her.

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"Sanctions are one-sided, unilateral actions taken by some without any regard for the people," Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of Asian and African officials in Bandung, capital of Indonesia's West Java province.

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) officials had been trying to meet the 58-year-old Nobel Peace laureate since she was detained on May 30 after a bloody clash between her supporters and a pro-junta group.

"I and one of my colleagues met her at where she was kept yesterday morning," the ICRC's representative in Myanmar, Michel Ducreaux, told Reuters on Tuesday.

"The meeting lasted for about half an hour and we were alone. It was a very decent place and the conditions were also very decent," he said, without elaborating on where Suu Kyi was being detained.

"She was in very good health and she wasn't hurt at all. She was in high spirits.

Only United Nations special envoy to Myanmar Razali Ismail had previously been allowed to see Suu Kyi in early June.

Win Aung echoed previous remarks from the junta that the democracy icon would not be held indefinitely, but gave no timeframe for her release.

"We are not wanting any kind of destabilization of the nation," he said. The junta blames Suu Kyi for the May 30 clash, accusing her of whipping up unrest.

On Saturday, authorities said they had arrested 12 people with links to opposition parties for planting deadly bombs and hatching a plot to kill junta members.